The Family (Or most of them)

January 23, 2007

The Bowman 2 Break from Boredom

After two of the modern world's greatest male minds meet and solve all the world's problems in about an hour or so, what do they do to further stimulate their existence?

THEY GO ON THE INTERNET AND PLAY THE LATEST MINDLESS BLOOD AND GORE GAME...

BOWMAN 2!!!

Let's face it.

Having all of the world's problems on four broad shoulders is a heavy load for anyone to have to carry, but someone's got to do it.

Both HE and I are hovering around 50. We need to re-energize.

And last Wednesday, after determining the fate of George W. Bush, pontificating on religion and resurrecting the UN (and watching back-to-back episodes of Deadwood in between), HE unveiled this discovery:

This is Bowman 2.

Note all the dead goose carcasses and the blood on the ground. In this solo version, the archer at the bottom tries to launch arrows as the geese fly above.

More often than not, you shoot the arrow up in the air and it comes right back down and hits you right between the eyes. Doh!

The more fun version is the two-player game, which of course I handily won.

Two stickmen archers, not in sight of each other on screen, take turns launching arrows back and forth trying to hit each other.

It took us about an hour to figure out the angles and the delivery and the range. Once we did, there were so many kersplats it was unbelievable. Blood just splashes out.

A bulls-eye results in huge gushes of blood spurting out from the heart and the game ends. And isn't that really what life's all about?

The lighting was poor but just look at HE's glee as he plays the game.

And we used to laugh and joke about our two sons playing Warcraft, Zelda or Final Fantasy on PlayStation or Nintendo.

Male maturity is truly amazing.

HE and I are not meeting this week, on account of the president's State of the Union address and also because I have to work nights.

But now we've found a diversion from all of our heavy mental lifting. And it is called Bowman 2.

Awwww Nights!! I used to work nights,and it used to really put me out of synch.Well I am afraid that I dont really play anything that exciting on line except for Yahtzee at Atari which I adore! I love the painted version of Yahtzee as theres a few moew tactics involved rather than chance.

"HE and I are not meeting this week, on account of the president's State of the Union address and also because I have to work nights."

I thought Canada's government is parliamentarian. I did not know you had a president. Did he give the SOTU address at the same time as Bush? If you are referring to the US president I think you should immigrate to the US. Florida could use someone who knows how to count the ballots.

By the way, you did a terrific job with your mock election, although if you did that for the benefit of the US, you should have counted Beyonce. Stuffing ballot boxes is how it is done here, right?

In real elections HE could win. He is white, male and handsome.

Unless you are God and the UN is Lazarus, you cannot resurrect the dead.

Sorry, no, didn't click on it. But HE will buy double-doubles all around anyway, seeing as he lost.

Ces:

Hmmm...I detect a slight bit of sarcasm in your remarks, and maybe that you're offended.

And sarcasm is OK and if you're hurt by what you perceive as a Canadian's unwelcome remarks about your president, I apologize.

It's evident you love your country and you feel inclined to defend it, at least as much as I've seen on HE's blog and this one.

When I blog about the U.S., I usually say what I first of all feel -- that America and Americans are lovely and beautiful.

But if you think millions of Canadians, British, Aussies, French, Italians, Filipinos and every other country on the planet where CNN reaches weren't watching your president last night, I believe you're wrong.

Your president, whether Americans like to believe it or not, is the leader of the free world.

His policies, his administration's blunders and everything else, affect the entire planet, not just the U.S.

But your message seems to be that unless I'm an American citizen, I have no right to voice my opinion, whether it's in jest or I'm being serious.

You know what his level of support is in your country. Multiply that by a bunch and you'll get the planet's take on him. That's not my opinion, that's just the truth.

Canada is a parliamentary system and my country has a lot of problems and issues itself, which I invite you to comment on to your heart's content.

But Canada is not the leading nation on the global scale, not even close, that the U.S. is.

Canada is a good neighbour to the U.S., or at least we try to be, but we are not Americans.

I don't think that deprives of the right to comment on what America does or doesn't do.

The U.S. doesn't need me to go down to Florida to fix its voting irregularity problem, it's already done that.

I'm too dense to get your last reference to being God and Lazarus and the UN, Ces.

Bringing back memeories of my first share house.... 2 of my best mates officially lived there, rest rest just drank our booze ate our food and stayed under our roof rent free... However WE used to have massive LAN parties, command and conquer, Quake, unreal, counterstrike, wolfenstein ET, against each other and also over the net against the rest of the world.... Watching jeeps crash when we had had a few too many. Great times.

I am currently playing an old game Roller coaster tycoon where you get to make a huge theme park. IF you put the food too close to roller coasters you can fill your park with vomit.

For starters, I would never criticize the outcome of any democratic election of any country. Generally I would find it distasteful.

Leadership is not by default. The problem is that no other country or union has the guts to step up to the plate. Once you declare yourself the leader of the free-world, de-facto you are now responsible for the problems of the world, if only figuratively. I am hoping the EU would succeed in order to impose a balance but the French are too busy squabbling with the Germans and English.

The United Nations would have been a great organization but Kofi Annan has succeeded in diminishing any trace of its usefulness and effectiveness. It is an organization of appeasers and empty toothless sanctions. Nuclear proliferation reached its zenith during Annan’s term. Dictators and countries had access to nuclear weapons more than ever.

Trudeau would have knocked America’s leadership perth during his two periods, but he was too busy squashing the French separatists and seeking Canada’s own independence, so Canada was just a baby then. So why don’t you guys find another Pierre Elliot and knock the socks off this immoral US leadership?

If it’s any consolation, it won’t be long before the US disintegrates into its bottomless pit when it is overcome by the river swimmers. Who knows we will be singing a national anthem in Spanish in the next decade?

Politics is too depressing, more depressing that this dreadful weather. I was never too keen on relying on any government for my own success and others should not either. I believe that government should have the least influence on individuals. Perhaps it is because I came from a country where corruption is the standard operating procedure. It is always possible to vote someone out of office or the very least try impeachment. It has been successfully done twice in US history with the seventh and the forty second presidents.

As for games, I played Pokemon Blue, Red and Yellow. I reached the master level, the end of the game.

SNOOD is a one player game where you see a screenfull of heads that make faces at you. The goal is score high points by pointing a head at a similar group of 3 (at a minimum) heads to make them disappear. You can visit the site at www.snood.com.

My husband and I play scrabble using his Palm pilot. We play when we have time -- I take a turn while he's driving or when we're home we pass it to each other when it's our turn. It's much better than playing with a board because the kids mess it up. So a single game can stretch up to two days.

My husband still winces whenever I mention that I've beaten him two straight rounds. For some reason, he doesn't want to start a new round yet.

jeez, ces: what's gotten into you? i can't see anything ww has said that isn't right on the money. i don't get the comment about God and lazarus and the un either.

ww, you kind of should be an american. you have the right attitude.

i did not know super mario was girly wimpy. i tried zelda for a time but it was way too complicated for me. these days i blog instead. jb plays computer solitaire. sat. night is date night. that's about it...

I thought it was better to respond separately to you on this discussion so others who aren't involved don't have to wade through it all.

Aside from the Florida irregularities, I WOULD discuss the results of an election -- even question them -- the same way I'd banter about the outcome of a football game and the strategy used or not used, and what the result means, from my perspective.

It's called being opinionated.

And everyone has their own opinions about everything and should be entitled to hold them and be respected for holding them.

That doesn't mean that anybody at all has to listen.

The U.S. administration has an opinion about everything in every region of the world. But more than that, it gets itself actively involved in every region of the world with an attitude that we have an interest here and this is what we have to say about it.

I don't agree that the rest of the planet's nations don't rise up to the occasion and so it's left to America to be the superhero white knight riding in at the last moment to save the world.

The UK has simply sided with America on Iraq and Afghanistan...the French, Japanese, Russians, Chinese and Germans and all of South America, to my knowledge, have mostly said we don't agree with your strategy and, as sovereign states, have stayed out of it.

America was told by the UN it shouldn't pursue its current course, and it went ahead anyway.

America is everywhere, and it's where a lot of the inhabitants of those places don't want it to be, trying to push democracy and moral values on people that simply don't want it or aren't ready for it.

Many would argue that America's sole interest in Iraw is not to topple a dictator and bring democracy to that country, but because it wants to protect its oil interests. Whatever.

America's government has put itself -- and, by extension, the rest of the world -- where it is right now. I don't know how that's disputable or how the action or inaction of other countries could have or would have changed that.

I don't agree with your comments on the UN. Kofi Annan may not be the right leader for it, but the U.S. has in many ways ignored the UN and contributed to making it the "toothless" organization you're saying it now is by basically thumbing its nose at directives or lobbying by the UN not to go into Iraq and other places.

If the U.S. and its allies poop on the UN, and China and Russia play by their own rules, then how effective can it ever be? In theory, it's a great idea...but everyone has to buy into it and not decide to sidestep it for their own purposes whenever they feel like it.

Trudeau never tried to knock the U.S. off its perch, he just wouldn't mindlessly kiss America's ass on every policy and pose for cute little photo ops the way Brian Mulroney or other lessers have since then. He wasn't afraid to say f$ you, you're wrong and we don't support you.

River swimmers: is that a reference to Cubans or Mexicans or both? People wanting to escape their own countries for the Land of Milk and Honey?

I find that a bit of a low blow towards them, really.

And there's no thought here about wanting the U.S. to fall flat on its face or disintegrate into a bottomless pit.

The most progressive and evolved countries in the world are grateful for such a great nation, in fact. But even the greatest of things have their warts and blemishes.

I agree that politics can be depressing. But it's part of our lives and we DO have to live with governments' decisions and are affected by them.

The least we can do is assess what impact they're having on our lives, form opinions about them and express those opinions rather than just stare blankly into space and not think about it at all.

Hmmm dont get me going on the U.K siding with America on the Iraq issue! Nobody here really wanted to be involved in that anyway,but it was down to overriding pressure that we did, unfortunatley.It has been the one thing which has lost Blair soo many of his followers.Laura(One fine day I will have a Blogger account!)

Secretly? Hmmm ... I can't concentrate on games so I cheat. There I've said it.

My brother couldn't understand how I kept beating him on this stupid jungle race game he was infatuated with, and it's 'cos when he stepped into the kitchen to pour drinks, my nephew took over the console for me. LOL, that's bad isn't it.

I'm with KJ on the politics, but not the Mario thing.As far as games go, I am even deeper in the dark than when I fiddle about trying to load pictures to blogger! If there is a game called Super Dumb or something, then I'd probably ace it!

OMG WW, I am on my way out and will be gone for a few days. I want to stay and banter with you but I have to go. I promise I will refrain from discussing politics with you again. :-) Our experiences and backgrounds make us polar opposites. I'll stick to reading your more lighthearted posts.

The world of Farcebook

I have kids on Farcebook. And friends. And a fiance. And all are very intelligent human beings.

I am on Farcebook myself. But it is the TV of life now. It is the simple, devoid of ideas, unintelligent way of humans communicating. I am not saying people who don't Farcebook are any more intelligent, necessarily.

They are people who , I believe, are like newspaper readers are to television viewers --people of more depth -- and I mean that with no disrespect.

And they are people who need and want more depth, not less, in their lives.